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December 4, 2018 -- A new alliance has formed in the U.K. that intends to make health data from patients in the National Health Service (NHS) more accessible for clinical trials, medical research, and innovation.

The U.K. Health Data Research Alliance intends to bring leading academics together with data scientists to develop new ways to design and support medical research, ultimately improving medical care in the NHS. In announcing the alliance, the group notes that, currently, only a fraction of the data produced by the NHS is easily accessible to researchers.

As a first step, the alliance will create a set of governance policies and standards to open up the data, while making sure that the information is safe, secure, and only shared where there is an appropriate legal basis, the group noted. Health Data Research UK and NHS Digital are the first partners to join the alliance, with other groups expected to join shortly.

NHS Digital and Health Data Research UK will agree to an approach on using data to better inform clinical trials and design systems that enable information from across the English healthcare system to be accessible in real-time.